Wpb Seeks Audit

Hispanic Group's Management At Issue

WEST PALM BEACH - — For two years, audits repeatedly have warned of mismanagement inside the county's most prominent Hispanic agency and leading private Head Start provider.

On Wednesday, the city joined the growing chorus calling for the Hispanic Human Resources Council Inc. to clarify its accounting and record-keeping practices.

A West Palm Beach commission committee instructed the city's internal auditor to determine if the council is serving poor children and keeping the records it agreed to keep in accepting $100,000 from West Palm Beach in 1993.

The federal grant money was used to help the agency purchase a day care center on Georgia Avenue.

In seeking the audit, Commissioner Al Zucaro said he was not taking sides but "hoping to put to bed" bitter infighting within the county's growing Hispanic community focusing on Lou Martinez, the agency's longtime executive director.

"I don't want this to be perceived as a witch hunt," Zucaro told the audit committee, which includes Mayor Nancy Graham.

As the council's director, Martinez is the chief advocate on social service issues and public policy for a Palm Beach County Hispanic community that now numbers more than 100,000.

The agency's budget is close to $3 million, drawn from federal, state and local governments and the United Way.

Close to 80 percent of the money goes to caring for 300 children - newborns to age 5 - at the former church the council purchased on Georgia Avenue, as well as a location on Congress Avenue west of the city.

Several critical audits citing inadequate child care, supervision and bookkeeping have cost the countywide, nonprofit agency two grants and put it on thin ice with several other benefactors.

The Children's Services Council of Palm Beach County had given it more than $170,000 for 1994-95. It refused a 1995-96 request from the agency for more than $400,000, based on child care quality inspections as well as bookkeeping problems.

Head Start officials in September placed Hispanic Human Resources on probation for similar reasons. But county Community Services Director Ed Rich said the agency has solved its problems.

"The chief concern was record keeping," Rich said. "They've had more training, added additional staff and have got everything in order."

Zucaro was prompted to act based on a 1994 Hispanic Human Resources Council internal audit brought to his attention by Hispanic activist Ed Gonzalez, and conversations with others including Spanish weekly columnist Ricardo Casas.

The report said the agency had failed to keep the detailed records required by the various federal and state agencies from which it accepts money and that "checks have been issued in excess of a bank balance by $101,827."

Martinez, a Democrat who has run for the County Commission and the School Board, and has raised funds for Graham and other prominent politicians, said the accusations are politically inspired.

He said the problems noted in the recent audits were caused by rapid growth in the number of clients the council serves.

"Do you enroll and set up quality classrooms or concentrate on the paperwork? We chose the former. The kids were No. 1," Martinez said.

"Maybe [critics) want to take over Hispanic Human Resources to do the things they claim I am doing [wrong). They would love to see me step down from here. Maybe Ed [Gonzalez) wants to run the show," Martinez said.

"These guys are sick. They don't have a life," Martinez said.

Casas, embroiled in a public records lawsuit with the agency, took issue with Martinez's comments.

"I have a beautiful family and home. I don't drink or smoke. I don't know what he means by that," Casas said.

Gonzalez, a marketing consultant who ran unsuccessfully for the County Commission in 1988, said he simply wants to make sure the county's most powerful Hispanic agency operates properly and is not tarnished.

"We have every right as Hispanic citizens and activists to oversee and look at this. Zucaro was alarmed by the [internal) audit," Gonzalez said. "We want Mr. Martinez to clean up his act or resign."